COVID-19 Update (8/29)
- The San Jose Mercury News reported and updated the county reopening plan on 8/29/2020:
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Friday unveiled a new system to monitor the coronavirus in California, revamping the state's watchlist for its 58 counties into color-coded levels that should simplify the process of reopening.
The new system starts Monday and, in some ways, is more permissive, allowing even the most restrictive counties to open retail, shopping centers and other businesses such as barbers and hair salons indoors.
The new guidelines focus only on rates for new cases and positive tests and require counties to meet certain thresholds for a minimum of three weeks before moving from purple, to red, to orange and then yellow. Depending on what happens this weekend, most Bay Area counties will start out purple.
The state specifically excluded a green level, Newsom said, "because we don't believe there's a green light that says go back to the way things were."
- Since this was just announced over the weekend, we don't yet know which tier will allow square dancing. Most likely, indoor dancing will be deemed a Tier 4 (or Tier 5) activity, with the same restriction as exercise classes.
- We will discuss more specific potential reopening dates at a later date. We will send out a survey/poll to ECR members to ask what they would be comfortable doing and when.
- St. Andrews Church and the Billy DeFrank Center have still not reopened.
